When the initial news of the death of Eric Garner occurred, it seemed a minor occurrence – very important to Mr. Garner and his family, but not a major national event. Now it has become the genesis of nationwide mindless protests, over the supposedly lethal and irresponsible actions of a New York policeman and the subsequent decision of a Grand Jury to decline an indictment.

Having reviewed the video several times now, and being a physician who specialized in the surgery of the very obese, I believe that the cause of Mr. Garner's death was not "police brutality" or negligence, but rather the unfortunate synergy between his disease of morbid obesity and actions most police perform countless times with only transient discomfort to the arrestee. The decision of the Grand Jury was reasonable.

Mr. Garner's demise was the consequence of a confluence of many factors, most of which were beyond the ken of a policeman, and which occurred in devastatingly rapid sequence.

Eric Garner was very obese, said to weigh at least 350 pounds. In fact, based upon his height and appearance, he very likely weighed more than that, but very few bathroom scales read high enough to accurately measure weight of that magnitude. By simple observation, one could see that his abdomen was very large and protuberant. His chest was similarly blanketed with a heavy layer of fat, and he had no visible neck – no indentation under his jaw, typically present in non-obese persons, which permits application of a "chokehold," to briefly arrest the carotid circulation to render him unconscious and manageable. The chokehold was ineffective as a control, but it served to take him to the ground by leverage.

Medically, he was said to suffer from sleep apnea, and he may well also have Pickwickian Syndrome (less picturesquely, "Obesity-hypoventilation syndrome"), which can cause resting hypoxia; low blood oxygen levels, even at rest; and altered physiological responses to high levels of carbon dioxide in the blood. These conditions in turn lead to congestive heart failure and to sporadic loss of consciousness. Yet another diagnosis was acute and chronic bronchial asthma, which can be activated by any acute stress, and which would further impair his respiration.

An obese male of Mr. Garner's size has enormously powerful muscle strength. Just lifting himself out of a chair requires pressing 350 lbs.! His legs each lift at least 350 lbs. with every step. He was almost certainly far stronger than any of the officers attempting to arrest him, and that required that they exert significant force to subdue him.
The tragedy developed as follows:

• The squad of officers who sought to arrest Garner was under the supervision of a sergeant who was black and female, and was therefore very unlikely to be racially motivated.

• Mr. Garner was being placed under arrest for a tax law violation related to the sale of untaxed cigarettes – a trivial offense.

• However, Mr. Garner actively resisted arrest, and that criminal offense forces the police to assert their authority, regardless of the gravity of the original crime (next time you get a traffic ticket, refuse to sign it, and see what happens to you).

• Officer Pantaleo can be seen in the video placing his left arm alongside Mr. Garner's neck, and encircling his neck with his right arm. However, there is no impression of Pantaleo's arm under Garner's chin, as is necessary for an effective carotid occlusion.

• The effect of Pantaleo's effort was to unbalance Garner, causing him to fall to the ground, with Pantaleo winding up on top of him. At this point, Pantaleo can clearly be seen to release his ineffectual "chokehold" and to (roughly) hold Garner's head to the pavement while the other officers subdue him.

• It was after Pantaleo had released his hold that Garner uttered, "I can't breathe!" several times. Garner was still alive and conscious after Pantaleo released him from the "chokehold" that supposedly (by overwhelming popular opinion) was responsible for his death!

• Mr. Garner was subdued by other officers who placed their weight on his body in order to wrest his arms behind him to apply handcuffs.

• Mr. Garner's chest capacity (vital capacity) was already seriously compromised by his obesity. An officer's weight on his chest would further diminish his lung capacities.

• Pressure on Mr. Garner's abdomen, also exerted to subdue him, forced the enormous fatty contents of his abdomen to be pushed upward toward his chest, restricting his diaphragmatic motion, adding another factor that reduced his ability to breathe. He was barely able to inhale enough air to gasp, "I can't breathe!"

• A normal and healthy male would have been transiently distressed by the actions of the arresting officers. Mr. Garner had no margin of safety, no reserve at all, and was precariously unstable even before he was accosted. The actions of the arresting officers, undoubtedly used many times before without significant ill effect, combined with Garner's pathophysiology to rapidly produce hypoxia, very likely aggravated by carbon dioxide retention and narcosis, which suppresses the normal reflex to breathe. This was rapidly followed by cardiac arrhythmia and death.

Unfortunately, when Mr. Garner became unconscious from hypoxia and carbon dioxide narcosis, the officers appeared bewildered and evidently did not realize that Mr. Garner was rapidly dying from cessation of his breathing and then of his cardiac activity.

The subsequent post-mortem examination is said to have shown no evidence of injury to either the larynx or the hyoid bone, which is almost always fractured in cases of strangulation. Mr. Garner is said to have died from "chest compression" and associated heart disease.

Few persons, undoubtedly including most police officers and even Mr. Garner, would understand the gravity and complex pathophysiology of this condition, and the rapidity with which it can become irreversible, unless an airway and mechanical ventilation can be quickly administered – and establishing an airway in a very obese person is itself extremely challenging even under ideal conditions, such as in an operating room, let alone on the sidewalk.

Eric Garner's death had essentially nothing to do with racism or racial animosity, particularly when one can see an African-American female sergeant, in charge at the scene, standing and observing the arrest in the background. Ultimately, as the senior officer on the scene, she was responsible for Mr. Garner's safety, although it would be unreasonable to incriminate her, either, given the obscure physiology of the chain of events that led to his unfortunate demise.

Needless to say, the facts will have little influence on racial demagogues, such as Al Sharpton and President Obama, as they seek to racially divide our nation and generate racial hatred.

On Monday, the editorial board of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch announced that it's turning off comments on its entire opinion section for two months. In an editorial titled "No comments: An experiment in elevating the conversation," the board lamented that these forums had become corrupted by the worst forms of Internet discourse, to the point that "just to present a thoughtful point of view, you have to endure vile and racist comments, shouting and personal attacks."

"We intend to use our opinion pages to help the St. Louis region have a meaningful discussion about race," the editorial went on, "So we are going to turn off the comments in the editorial section for a while, and see what we learn from it."

The decision comes not long after the venerable newspaper appealed to its readers to come together and talk about race. In a sweeping November 29 editorial, the paper suggested readers treat the Monday editorial comment section as a "virtual living room" where they could bridge racial divides and perhaps foster a measure of empathy sorely needed in the region after months of protests and unrest.

"It's in social media, it's in what all the of the press is reporting on, it's at the forefront of what's going on in our community. It is potentiality part of something historic in terms of how our community responds," Messenger says.

"It really is something that St. Louis is struggling with," he continues, "and what I came to believe, and what the board came to believe, is that getting rid of comments might help. Having them isn't going to make the conversation better, so getting rid of them is addition by subtraction."

The reaction to last week's editorial (which is entirely worth the read) appears to have been the final straw for the overwhelmed opinion section. Instead of meaningful conversation, the editorial's comments were largely dominated with the usual antagonistic, borderline racist drek.

So for the next two months, trolls and well-meaning commenters alike will have to take to Facebook or social media to add their two cents to the Post-Dispatch's editorials, columns and letters to the editor. And though the comment section remains on the newspaper's other sections, the Post-Dispatch would hardly be the first media organization to ax comments altogether.

"We're trying to find, on the editorial page, positive solutions to the problems that exist before us," Messenger says. "It's harder to have difficult conversations about those solutions where people of good intentions can disagree, if as part of that conversation people with bad intentions are just shouting at each other."

As for the commenters themselves, their reaction to the decision isn't very surprising.

One reader, writing on the Post-Dispatch's Facebook page, quipped: "Reminds me of the time we were playing basketball, one kid was losing, so he took his ball and went home so no one could play."

Another wrote: "I just commented! Conversation ruined."

Messenger tells Daily RFT he actually prefers having these conversations on social media, where he and other writers can more easily communicate with civil readers while ignoring the trolls who just want to fight.

"In my personal experience there is an opportunity on social media for positive discussion, in real time, with people that want to have it," he says. "I'm going to make a concerted effort to find those areas of positive conversation."

Judging from Messenger's Twitter postings, it looks like he's got his work cut out for him.

Got an email from a reader responding to the editorial about turning off comments that was completely blank. Clever way to make a point.— Tony Messenger (@tonymess) December 8, 2014

The article below is so bad that I’ve forced myself to read it, yet have only made it two-thirds of the way through, plus the last few paragraphs. It’s like something out of The West Wing—well-written fiction.

“No, Barack Obama never had reporters eating out of his hand the way that right-wingers love to allege…”

Of course, he did.

That’s the Big Lie at the heart of this script: The media are equally hostile to Democratic and Republican presidents, as opposed to being overwhelmingly socialist and communist hacks.

On campaign flights, leftwing feminist “reporters” screamed at Secret Service bodyguards to get out of the way, so they could get a clean view of the candidate’s crotch. Then and since, the MSM have been the dog that didn’t bark, continually refusing to report what ought to be huge stories, whether it was Obama’s over 20-year-long membership in a genocidally racist, black church; charges that he stole the 2008 Democratic nomination through massive voter fraud in the early caucus states; the ridiculous notion that his presidential campaign began in January 2007, when it had been underway since at least in 2004; his ruthless cover-up of the Kevin Johnson scandal in Sacramento; the wave of murderous racist black-on-white and black-on-Asian crime, which he has inspired and aggressively supported; and the MSM lying on behalf of “Obama’s” illegal, unconstitutional amnesty of millions of illegal aliens, in order to try and turn it into a legal act.

Former Obama propaganda officer Reid Cherlin approvingly quotes leftwing lobbyist Anita Dunn, who was “Obama’s” head of communications during his first year in office. That would be the same Anita Dunn, who was part of the planned White House campaign seeking to destroy Fox News.

The MSM knew that “Obama” was a black hard leftist, and were in the tank for him, because of that. They started denouncing any and all of his critics already in February 2007.

Some media operatives have soured on him in recent years because no matter faithful they are to him, he goes out of his way to bully them. That’s the racist dictator in him.

“We suddenly find ourselves living in a post-narrative world, and our politics, somehow, are going to have to adapt.”

Virtually all media operatives attended J-School, which is nothing but one long loyalty test. Outside of Fox, they all uphold The Narrative.

“The pliant, monolithic news media of old is simply gone, and with it, one of the greatest powers of the presidency.”
This is a joke, right? Can you say, “Journolist”?
“Appearing at his first Correspondents' Dinner, in 2009, the president joked, ‘Most of you covered me; all of you voted for me.’”
That was no joke; that was a statement of fact.

The Presidency and the Press
The White House distrusts the media, reporters feel persecuted - a former Obama spokesman on the history of the toxic relationship
By Reid Cherlin
August 4, 2014Rolling Stone

Somewhere between Seoul and Kuala Lumpur, with Air Force One cruising just shy of the speed of sound, Barack Obama decided to have a word with the press.

It has been tradition for Obama to make a visit back to the press cabin during the last leg of exhausting presidential foreign trips – just a friendly off-the-record chat – but this junket, a barnburner taking the chief executive to Japan, South Korea, Malaysia and the Philippines this past April, wouldn't be over for three days. The president's blood was up over two analysis pieces in The New York Times. One, written by national security correspondent David Sanger and timed for Obama's arrival in Seoul, accused the administration of dangerously underestimating Kim Jong-Un. A second story, splashed on the paper's front page, had effectively declared the trip a failure while it was still in progress: "President Obama encountered setbacks to two of his most cherished foreign-policy projects on Thursday," it read, citing the inability to reach a trade deal with Japan and the breakdown of Middle East peace talks. That piece had been co-bylined by White House correspondent Mark Landler, who had been tagging along on the president's jaunt and hence was at that moment sitting in the press cabin.
Jay Carney, the press secretary, arrived to give the heads-up and secure the standard agreement from the reporters to treat Obama's visit as off the record, meaning that the contents could never be published or broadcast. Carney was followed by the president himself, who assembled his lanky eminence against the bulkhead at the fore of the cabin and proceeded to dress down Landler and his colleagues.
With the chat being off the record, a definitive accounting of what was said is hard to come by; it is clear, though, that the thrust of the president's message was this: Foreign policy is hard, you guys are scoring it like a campaign debate, and moreover, you're doing it inaccurately. He went further, telling the dozen or so reporters that what he favored was a judicious use of American power, and that his primary concern was not to get the country embroiled in situations from which it might take a decade to extract ourselves. He offered up an oddly sophomoric mantra for his foreign policy: "Don't do stupid shit."
The White House insists that Obama's walk to the back of the plane wasn't motivated solely by irritation, and as a rule, correspondents say they value the chance to hear the president explain his thinking. But if the idea was to help shape the coverage, well, then that didn't work either. "Obama Criticized News Coverage During Off-the-Record Meeting With Reporters," flashed Huffington Post media writer Michael Calderone. "Stop whining, Mr. President," Maureen Dowd wrote with glee.
It was the latest in what has come to seem like an endless string of bad headlines: ongoing Benghazi investigations, bias and deleted e-mails at the IRS, indecision about Syria, the health care website fail, the conundrum of Ukraine, mismanagement at the VA, redeployment of American troops to Iraq, and the cringe-worthy handling of the coverage of the prisoner swap for Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl. The discomfort here is more than just the ritual excoriation of a second-term American president: It's more jarring, and more lurid, because it runs contrary to the set idea of coziness between Obama and the news media.
I worked in Obama's press operation for four years, two on the first presidential campaign and two as a spokesman at the White House, responding to crises and commenting for reporters, and watching up close the rhythms of the particularly sour relationship between the president and the press. I'm biased in that I think Obama is right about most things. I also believe he'll be remembered as an excellent president. Which is strange to say, because if you are a consumer of any kind of political news these days, the only impression you get is that the Obama presidency is on the verge of collapse, and that he either doesn't know or doesn't seem to care. It's a complete disconnect, and it has everything to do with how the president is covered.
No, Barack Obama never had reporters eating out of his hand the way that right-wingers love to allege – even though Obama's intellectual approach made him seem like someone who could just as easily have been a columnist as a candidate. Appearing at his first Correspondents' Dinner, in 2009, the president joked, "Most of you covered me; all of you voted for me." But even as polite laughter settled over the black-tie crowd, there was ample evidence that the old way of the news business – in fact, the news business entirely – was falling away, and with it, the last shreds of comity between subject and scribe.
Obama, during his two campaigns for the presidency, had made a point of going over the heads of the media (denigrated as "the filter") and communicating directly with voters. With Obama in office, reporters have complained that the approach has sometimes bordered on pathology. Press photographers have loudly groused about a lack of access to the president – the White House often prefers to send out its own official shots – and reporters covering the beat say they are generally kept in the dark about what the president is actually doing. "At the White House, you're cordoned off like veal," says CNN's Jake Tapper, a former White House correspondent. Worse, the administration has initiated or continued high-profile legal action against reporters entangled in leak cases, most notably James Risen of The New York Times. Risen called this administration "the greatest enemy of press freedom that we have encountered in at least a generation."
Meanwhile, the press corps itself, under immense financial and technological pressure, is in the process of remaking itself to fit a polarized country where users increasingly choose opinionated news sources that suit their own tastes. The result, six years into the Obama term, is that the administration and the press are in essence tweeting past each other, even as each decries its treatment at the hands of the other. The White House suspects that reporters intentionally sensationalize their stories; reporters suspect that the White House plays with the facts to get its message out. Both suspicions are correct.
"Like any period of tumultuous change, it's not a happy one," says Obama's former communications director Anita Dunn. But the consequences run deeper than a lack of good feeling. In our history classes we mythologize the idea that a president can change the world just by speaking: "Ask not," or "Tear down this wall." We summon the image of FDR's fireside chats – but what would they have been without that obedient row of network microphones? The pliant, monolithic news media of old is simply gone, and with it, one of the greatest powers of the presidency. "This idea that somehow there's a bully pulpit that can be used effectively," Dunn says, "to communicate with everybody in this country at the same time and get them all wrapped around one issue – it's very much an idea whose time has passed."
The origin story of Obama's messy relationship with the press is the origin story of the president himself and his seminal 2008 campaign. Even as Obama was showing off an electrifying knack for motivating and organizing people, his team was beginning to grapple with what was quite obviously a media world in the throes of reinvention. To start with, there was Politico, a website founded just as the race began. Opinionated, grabby and lightning-quick, Politico played to the adrenaline junkie in every reader with content that was cheap to produce and a subject – the vagaries of political fortune – that was inexhaustible. Obama's advisers detested Politico from the start, accurately recognizing its potential to wreak havoc on their carefully crafted narratives, and to inspire their competitors to indulge in the same bad habits.
The picture deteriorated further in April of that year, during the grinding final stage of the Obama-Clinton primary. A story appeared on Huffington Post, itself only three years old, reporting on comments Obama had made in a private fundraiser: "It's not surprising, then, they get bitter," he'd said of Pennsylvania voters. "They cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them." Robert Gibbs, at the time Obama's traveling communications director, remembers seeing the clip arrive in his inbox: "I hit 'reply all' and said, 'This is going to be a ginormous problem,'" he tells me. Bittergate seemed like a standard-issue political firestorm – except for the fact that it came not from a newspaper but from a private citizen. Mayhill Fowler, an Obama supporter and a self-described "teacher, editor and writer," had attended the fundraiser and wrote it up of her own volition. The lines between citizen, journalist, columnist and partisan were disappearing for good, and along with them, much of a candidate's ability to shape his own message as it percolated outward.
The campaign began exploring ways to re-exert control, ignoring the media altogether. Campaign manager David Plouffe and other senior advisers made a virtue, even a show, of shrugging off press criticism. Instead, they amped up efforts to put the campaign's unfiltered message directly in voters' inboxes, social-media feeds and television sets. Significant strategy announcements would be made in the form of videos, with Plouffe speaking straight into the camera, rather than through news releases or strategic interviews. Even the venerated VP announcement, a tradition of modern campaigning, got overhauled. Dunn, who was at the time a campaign communications strategist, recalls a planning meeting in which "some of the folks who had done the vice-presidential announcements for Clinton and Gore were talking about how they would work with AP and they would do this and that" to plant the official news in widely read outlets. Dunn was seated next to the campaign's director of new media, Joe Rospars. "And Rospars is looking at me with that 'we're not doing it that way' look on his face." Rospars, Dunn and Plouffe decided that Obama would make his big announcement by text message. It was a clever ploy to get the supporters to sign up for text alerts. But it was also a clear fuck-you to the press, a very public way of cutting them out of the relationship between Obama and the voters. The campaign "went out of its way to let the press know we were communicating around them," Dunn says.
The strategy looked awfully effective. There was some groaning from reporters, but the adulatory coverage continued to roll in, detailing Obama's building momentum and his eventual thrashing of John McCain (there was similar coverage again in 2012, when he thrashed Mitt Romney). But you're going to get nice stories written about you when you're winning primaries and helping to rewrite America's troubled racial history. The question is what would happen when things started going badly. Because when you are governing, everything is going badly all the time.
On the first campaign I ever worked on, in the middle of dealing with a particularly bad story for our candidate, a veteran staffer dropped a pearl of advice: "Just remember," he said, "your worst day on the campaign is better than your best day in the White House."
It turned out to be only a slight exaggeration. The president is nominally in charge of so much that it often feels like the power dynamic inverts, and that the White House exists to take blame for the misdeeds of others – very often agencies or bureaucrats over which you have essentially zero control. Nowhere is that frustration felt more than in the press office. "At the White House we have to have an answer for everything," says Carney, the recently departed press secretary. "Events that are completely organic and are not in your control and you don't have a lot of levers of power to affect become things you have to answer for very quickly."
It's a dynamic that was on display even on the day Carney announced that he was resigning, in late May. That morning, the president had come to the briefing room to formally concede the abuses at the Veterans Health Administration and announce that Secretary Eric Shinseki would resign after all. This was a classic-order Washington scandal, not because it isn't bad that veterans face long waits and substandard care, but because anyone who's come into contact with the VA in the past 30 years knows that vets face long waits and substandard care on a systemic basis, and that firing the head of the agency probably will do nothing to change that. "But Washington has these things where in order for a story to stop and the next chapter to be written," says Gibbs, Obama's first White House press secretary (and for several years my boss), "there have to be these inflection points," like ritual firings. The press seemed eager to keep the story going, however, and at the afternoon's briefing Carney had just answered a question – about the president's statement that morning that even Shinseki hadn't known about all the problems – when the president himself walked in to announce that Carney was stepping down from the job after a little more than three years in the post.
"Jay has become one of my closest friends," Obama said, his voice almost quivering. Carney stood by as his boss announced that Carney's deputy, Josh Earnest, would succeed him in the role. Obama extolled Earnest's many nice qualities, "a coach's son" from Kansas City. "Be nice to Jay on his farewell tour," he admonished the reporters, "and be nice to Josh during his initiation," before ad¬libbing, "which I'm sure will last maybe two days – or perhaps two questions."
There was some dutiful laughter in the rows of folding blue press chairs, but everyone understood that this was, of course, not a joke. Carney had been a reporter at Time for 20 years before moving into government; even if no one expected a love affair in the briefing room, then at least that shared history would help everyone see eye to eye. "The press turned on him in about four minutes," one adviser to the White House tells me, "because that's their job."
"There's never been a White House since John Kennedy where the president and the press have had a really good relationship," says Dunn. "But I do think that, with every administration, it's gotten worse."
Presidential histories are indeed studded with tales of media disruption and the anguish it's caused, going back at least as far as Teddy Roosevelt and the muckrakers. The Clinton years saw a charismatic man collide with the monstrous new 24-hour news cycle; Fox News and Drudge whirred to life just as the Lewinsky scandal broke. Press secretary Mike McCurry agreed to let the White House briefing be televised live – he recently called this a "fatal mistake" – remaking the Q&A into the sordid food fight it is today. With the second Bush administration came the ginned-up case for the Iraq war and a general presumption that the press corps was hostile to the GOP agenda. When The New York Times broke the story of the administration's warrantless wiretapping, Bush called the report "shameful." One of the Times reporters on the story was Risen, who later found himself the subject of a government subpoena for revelations of skullduggery in his book, State of War. The ascendance of Obama, the former constitutional-law professor and frequent critic of Bush policies, would have seemed to signal a warming, but none has come. In June, the Supreme Court, at the urging of Obama's Justice Department, declined to hear Risen's appeal.
The administration feels it has inherited some of the friction from these prosecutions. "There's no doubt these cases were a huge source of tension last year," says the White House adviser, "but these are Bush investigations. The president expressed both publicly and privately his frustration with the way they are being handled and has said reporters should never be in trouble for doing their job."
There are many, Carney included, who dismiss the idea of a worsening trend line, pointing to the deeply rancorous relationship under Clinton even before Lewinsky, for example. But you don't have to look very hard to find ample evidence of faster change and greater stress, on both sides, that drive the feeling of decay. The now-familiar declines in viewership and readership, and the wholesale slashing of newsroom jobs, have meant more problems for reporters than just questions about job security. New kinds of news sites have swept in to fill the vacuum, offering cheaper and clickier stories than even the dreaded Politico. Legacy media companies and the webby newcomers like BuzzFeed are in a pitched battle to be first, or at least not last, and to spin the story of the day into something arrestingly meaningful.
When I catch up with Carney a few days after he left the White House, he says one effect "of all the cutting and slashing" of the news media is that "everybody's strung out and incapable of taking a breath and actually thinking about what they're saying or writing." It drives conflict between the president's staff and the press, he says, because reporters are under so much pressure and constantly demanding that the White House confirm every rumor and react to every slight. "More than ever," Carney says, "press offices are bracing themselves and have to resist being reactive to what's just coming over the transom – and so much more comes over so much more quickly that you get into that reactive mode very quickly." Before you know it, everyone is fuming – or shouting.
And then there is Twitter, which is now the premier driver of a news cycle that boils around the clock. In an erosion of traditional editorial neutrality, reporters take to Twitter not just to break stories but also to break half-stories, or rumors, or just retweet another reporter's tweet about a possible development. It's a kind of accelerating group-reporting that blurs traditional ideas of journalistic responsibility. "The intensity of the way stories break and become huge deals," Carney says, "and on the back end the way they burn out more quickly, too" – as the hive moves on to the next item of interest – "that's totally new."
As recently as the Reagan presidency, the White House was more or less completely in control of how news broke out of the Oval Office. Every presidential event was covered by the three networks – there were only three networks – and the handful of national papers. "You would reach almost every voter in the country," Carney says. "And that's not even remotely the case now. The only way you get that many eyeballs at one time is to have an enormous event, something like killing bin Laden."
Otherwise, people are increasingly getting information from an atomized, partisan, choose-your-news smorgasbord, where you're as likely to process the State of the Union through your brother-in-law's Facebook rants, the tweets of a few favorite reporters, and the top 17 GIFs of Nancy Pelosi blinking as curated by BuzzFeed. "That's why we do all the unorthodox stuff, putting him in unusual places," Carney says – like Obama's appearance on the Web series Between Two Ferns – "just to try to reach people where they are. Because where they're not is watching the news or reading the newspapers."
Even so, the aggregate day-to-day coverage of Obama usually still sucks. It's always an easy story to point out where the president has failed to deliver on his promises. Members of Congress from both parties are always happy to jump on the phone with a reporter and say the president isn't showing requisite leadership on issue X. Even on days when there is nothing big happening, there are still plenty of small things happening, and as a rule, they are bad: You find yourself, as I did one day, trying to find a way to explain to the country that we actually may have been putting too much fluoride in the water all these years.
Adding to the levels of mutual distrust and animus, Obama's communications team often resorts to hand-to-hand combat. The White House press staff, from day one, distributed authority more broadly than Bush's hands-off group, empowering more junior-level aides to help reporters as they saw fit, and when that didn't work, to fight with them – or "push back," as jargon has it. It didn't take long for the group to earn a reputation as overly quick to scream to get their way, or to exact a price for stories they saw as unfair. "If we're being honest, going back to the 2008 general election, there was a culture of bravado," says Tommy Vietor, who was one of my co-workers in the press office. "And it led to unnecessary shouting matches." Vietor concedes that the tactic – which he and I both employed liberally – was "immature." It also doesn't work particularly well, and as the years passed and the novelty of an Obama presidency leached away, the atmosphere of presumption and entitlement to good coverage has worn poorly.
In mid-July, the White House openly snubbed a BuzzFeed reporter, Chris Geidner, leaving him out of a conference call on a forthcoming executive order, apparently in reaction to Geidner's reporting of leaked material from a hush-hush strategy meeting with LGBT advocates. Two months before, the White House had levied similar punishment on The New York Times for skirting a restriction called an embargo (information provided in advance on the condition that it can't be reported before a certain set time). Times writers used their own sourcing to report the story early, and the next time an embargoed document came around, detailing one of the president's upcoming speeches, Times correspondents found themselves excluded from the party. The White House was reluctant to reopen these episodes, but an official suggests to me that rigorous policing of the embargo policy is the only way to be fair to outlets that play by the rules. Still, the reporter under pressure might wonder why there needs to be an embargo in the first place: It's a relic from the pre-Twitter age of information control, which is to say gratuitous and ultimately futile. "We bristle at efforts to rein us in and browbeat us," Peter Baker, one of the offending Times reporters, tells me. Baker says he sympathizes with a White House staff constantly under fire, but he's seen a decline in the health of the working relationship over the three administrations he's covered. "There is something lost," he says, a bit wistfully.
Even before Obama and his new politics burst onto the scene in 2008, we knew we lived in a country that is evenly but drastically split in its worldview. Now that the opposition can rewrite the news as it's happening, the two sides can essentially live in separate realities – which is perhaps what we've always wanted. It's becoming clear, though, that two casualties of this new order are efficacious, fact-based governing and an independent, fact-based press.
Amid the barrage of criticism, as Obama strains to respond to every new crisis, the White House's moves begin to look like guesses, or even shrugs. "When you don't know what you can plan for," Gibbs says, "then you're watching and reacting. And in this town, if you're just watching and reacting, it never ends well."
Beltway wags have long wondered how it is that Obama, such a gifted communicator, can't manage to tell the story of his own accomplishments. As an insider, that criticism always annoyed me, because it conveniently ignores the realities of how things have changed. As an outsider now, I see the point. If someone this talented and this appealing can't succeed in forging consensus – or even settle on a consistent narrative about what he's done – then what hope is there for the next president? We suddenly find ourselves living in a post-narrative world, and our politics, somehow, are going to have to adapt.
The White House isn't panicking. They know that in spite of everything, they have managed over six years to accomplish much of what Obama promised to do, even if accomplishing it helped speed the process of partisan breakdown. "Everything that you're saying about communications is not actually about communications per se as it is about the polarized nature of the country," the White House adviser says. "There's no clean shot" for communicating the president's message. "That's just where the country's going. And it's going to be worse for the next president," he adds, "hands down."

“Parker was shot while walking in the area of Melrose and Kenmore avenues after she was confronted by three Latino men, authorities said. Parker, described as a transgender woman, was taken to a hospital, where she died in surgery.”

Read the comments.

N.S.: Was the vic a man trying to pass for a woman, or a woman trying to pass for a man?

Every now and then you come across an article that folks just need to read. This one written by Michael Smith entitled, “Confessions of a Public Defender” and originally posted at American Renaissance on May 9, 2014 is one of those articles.

It is a profound and deeply disturbing piece, which, as we end 2014, we all need to comprehend as we move towards the 50th anniversary of the Great Society initiatives of President Lyndon Baines Johnson.

Smith articulates that which ails the black community — the real discussion we should be having on race, not that of victimhood and the further expansion of the welfare nanny-state.

He begins by saying, “I am a public defender in a large southern metropolitan area. Fewer than ten percent of the people in the area I serve are black but over 90 per cent of my clients are black. The remaining ten percent are mainly Hispanics but there are a few whites.”

“I have no explanation for why this is, but crime has racial patterns. Hispanics usually commit two kinds of crime: sexual assault on children and driving under the influence. Blacks commit many violent crimes but very few sex crimes. The handful of whites I see commit all kinds of crimes. In my many years as a public defender I have represented only three Asians, and one was half black.”

He presents his observations based on his personal experience with black defendants, and his words will no doubt inflame many:

My experience has also taught me that blacks are different by almost any measure to all other people. They cannot reason as well. They cannot communicate as well. They cannot control their impulses as well. They are a threat to all who cross their paths, black and non-black alike.

It will take you only 5 minutes to read this article — and I would bet you’ll read it again. Then ask yourself, is this something you hear Al Sharpton addressing? Or President Obama, Eric Holder, Jeh Johnson or Jesse Jackson?

I’m quite sure the progressive socialist left will criticize me for sharing this article – that’s just who they are – they hate the truth. But if there is a war to be fought, it is for the soul of the inner city and the black community. The facts and observations in this are not shocking to me. They are quite well known, but the manner in which the writer so eloquently presents them is quite commendable.
We cannot begin to “have a conversation about race” until we are willing to honestly address the facts.

As Smith says at the end, “I do know that it is wrong to deceive the public. Whatever solutions we seek should be based on the truth rather than what we would prefer was the truth.”

[N.S. note: I read this masterpiece when Jared Taylor originally published it, but when I saw the reference today from Col. West, I could have sworn I’d read it a year or two ago. It turns out it was only seven months ago. Son of a gun!]

I am a public defender in a large southern metropolitan area. Fewer than ten percent of the people in the area I serve are black but over 90 per cent of my clients are black. The remaining ten percent are mainly Hispanics but there are a few whites.

I have no explanation for why this is, but crime has racial patterns. Hispanics usually commit two kinds of crime: sexual assault on children and driving under the influence. Blacks commit many violent crimes but very few sex crimes. The handful of whites I see commit all kinds of crimes. In my many years as a public defender I have represented only three Asians, and one was half black.

As a young lawyer, I believed the official story that blacks are law abiding, intelligent, family-oriented people, but are so poor they must turn to crime to survive. Actual black behavior was a shock to me.

The media invariably sugarcoat black behavior. Even the news reports of the very crimes I dealt with in court were slanted. Television news intentionally leaves out unflattering facts about the accused, and sometimes omits names that are obviously black. All this rocked my liberal, tolerant beliefs, but it took me years to set aside my illusions and accept the reality of what I see every day. I have now served thousands of blacks and their families, protecting their rights and defending them in court. What follow are my observations.

Although blacks are only a small percentage of our community, the courthouse is filled with them: the halls and gallery benches are overflowing with black defendants, families, and crime victims. Most whites with business in court arrive quietly, dress appropriately, and keep their heads down. They get in and get out–if they can–as fast as they can. For blacks, the courthouse is like a carnival. They all seem to know each other: hundreds and hundreds each day, gossiping, laughing loudly, waving, and crowding the halls.

When I am appointed to represent a client I introduce myself and explain that I am his lawyer. I explain the court process and my role in it, and I ask the client some basic questions about himself. At this stage, I can tell with great accuracy how people will react. Hispanics are extremely polite and deferential. An Hispanic will never call me by my first name and will answer my questions directly and with appropriate respect for my position. Whites are similarly respectful.

A black man will never call me Mr. Smith; I am always “Mike.” It is not unusual for a 19-year-old black to refer to me as “dog.” A black may mumble complaints about everything I say, and roll his eyes when I politely interrupt so I can continue with my explanation. Also, everything I say to blacks must be at about the third-grade level. If I slip and use adult language, they get angry because they think I am flaunting my superiority.

At the early stages of a case, I explain the process to my clients. I often do not yet have the information in the police reports. Blacks are unable to understand that I do not yet have answers to all of their questions, but that I will by a certain date. They live in the here and the now and are unable to wait for anything. Usually, by the second meeting with the client I have most of the police reports and understand their case.

Unlike people of other races, blacks never see their lawyer as someone who is there to help them. I am a part of the system against which they are waging war. They often explode with anger at me and are quick to blame me for anything that goes wrong in their case.

Black men often try to trip me up and challenge my knowledge of the law or the facts of the case. I appreciate sincere questions about the elements of the offense or the sentencing guidelines, but blacks ask questions to test me. Unfortunately, they are almost always wrong in their reading, or understanding, of the law, and this can cause friction. I may repeatedly explain the law, and provide copies of the statute showing, for example, why my client must serve six years if convicted, but he continues to believe that a hand-written note from his “cellie” is controlling law.

The cellie who knows the law

The risks of trial

The Constitution allows a defendant to make three crucial decisions in his case. He decides whether to plea guilty or not guilty. He decides whether to have a bench trial or a jury trial. He decides whether he will testify or whether he will remain silent. A client who insists on testifying is almost always making a terrible mistake, but I cannot stop him.

Most blacks are unable to speak English well. They cannot conjugate verbs. They have a poor grasp of verb tenses. They have a limited vocabulary. They cannot speak without swearing. They often become hostile on the stand. Many, when they testify, show a complete lack of empathy and are unable to conceal a morality based on the satisfaction of immediate, base needs. This is a disaster, especially in a jury trial. Most jurors are white, and are appalled by the demeanor of uneducated, criminal blacks.

Prosecutors are delighted when a black defendant takes the stand. It is like shooting fish in a barrel. However, the defense usually gets to cross-examine the black victim, who is likely to make just as bad an impression on the stand as the defendant. This is an invaluable gift to the defense, because jurors may not convict a defendant—even if they think he is guilty—if they dislike the victim even more than they dislike the defendant.

Rachel Jeantel: Blacks often make bad witnesses.

Most criminal cases do not go to trial. Often the evidence against the accused is overwhelming, and the chances of conviction are high. The defendant is better off with a plea bargain: pleading guilty to a lesser charge and getting a lighter sentence.

The decision to plea to a lesser charge turns on the strength of the evidence. When blacks ask the ultimate question—”Will we win at trial?”—I tell them I cannot know, but I then describe the strengths and weaknesses of our case. The weaknesses are usually obvious: There are five eyewitnesses against you. Or, you made a confession to both the detective and your grandmother. They found you in possession of a pink cell phone with a case that has rhinestones spelling the name of the victim of the robbery. There is a video of the murderer wearing the same shirt you were wearing when you were arrested, which has the words “In Da Houz” on the back, not to mention you have the same “RIP Pookie 7/4/12” tattoo on your neck as the man in the video. Etc.

If you tell a black man that the evidence is very harmful to his case, he will blame you. “You ain’t workin’ fo’ me.” “It like you workin’ with da State.” Every public defender hears this. The more you try to explain the evidence to a black man, the angrier he gets. It is my firm belief many black are unable to discuss the evidence against them rationally because they cannot view things from the perspective of others. They simply cannot understand how the facts in the case will appear to a jury.

This inability to see things from someone else’s perspective helps explain why there are so many black criminals. They do not understand the pain they are inflicting on others. One of my robbery clients is a good example. He and two co-defendants walked into a small store run by two young women. All three men were wearing masks. They drew handguns and ordered the women into a back room. One man beat a girl with his gun. The second man stood over the second girl while the third man emptied the cash register. All of this was on video.

[Here, I have to disagree with the writer. If the black perp did not understand the pain he was inflicting on his victims, he would not have committed such heinous crimes. He can only enjoy his crimes, to the degree that he understands the suffering he causes his victims. Smith is confusing understanding with action, and combining both notions together into the concept of “empathy,” a common mistake.]

My client was the one who beat the girl. When he asked me, “What are our chances at trial?” I said, “Not so good.” He immediately got angry, raised his voice, and accused me of working with the prosecution. I asked him how he thought a jury would react to the video. “They don’t care,” he said. I told him the jury would probably feel deeply sympathetic towards these two women and would be angry at him because of how he treated them. I asked him whether he felt bad for the women he had beaten and terrorized. He told me what I suspected—what too many blacks say about the suffering of others: “What do I care? She ain’t me. She ain’t kin. Don’t even know her.”

No fathers

As a public defender, I have learned many things about people. One is that defendants do not have fathers. If a black even knows the name of his father, he knows of him only as a shadowy person with whom he has absolutely no ties. When a client is sentenced, I often beg for mercy on the grounds that the defendant did not have a father and never had a chance in life. I have often tracked down the man’s father–in jail–and have brought him to the sentencing hearing to testify that he never knew his son and never lifted a finger to help him. Often, this is the first time my client has ever met his father. These meetings are utterly unemotional.

Many black defendants don’t even have mothers who care about them. Many are raised by grandmothers after the state removes the children from an incompetent teenaged mother. Many of these mothers and grandmothers are mentally unstable, and are completely disconnected from the realities they face in court and in life. A 47-year-old grandmother will deny that her grandson has gang ties even though his forehead is tattooed with a gang sign or slogan. When I point this out in as kind and understanding way as I can, she screams at me. When black women start screaming, they invoke the name of Jesus and shout swear words in the same breath.

Black women have great faith in God, but they have a twisted understanding of His role. They do not pray for strength or courage. They pray for results: the satisfaction of immediate needs. One of my clients was a black woman who prayed in a circle with her accomplices for God’s protection from the police before they would set out to commit a robbery.

[This, I believe, is the primitive, original psychology of religion, which one still sees among “third world” people, and which they are importing into America by the millions.]

The mothers and grandmothers pray in the hallways–not for justice, but for acquittal. When I explain that the evidence that their beloved child murdered the shop keeper is overwhelming, and that he should accept the very fair plea bargain I have negotiated, they will tell me that he is going to trial and will “ride with the Lord.” They tell me they speak to God every day and He assures them that the young man will be acquitted.

The mothers and grandmothers do not seem to be able to imagine and understand the consequences of going to trial and losing. Some–and this is a shocking reality it took me a long time to grasp–don’t really care what happens to the client, but want to make it look as though they care. This means pounding their chests in righteous indignation, and insisting on going to trial despite terrible evidence. They refuse to listen to the one person–me–who has the knowledge to make the best recommendation. These people soon lose interest in the case, and stop showing up after about the third or fourth court date. It is then easier for me to convince the client to act in his own best interests and accept a plea agreement.

Part of the problem is that underclass black women begin having babies at age 15. They continue to have babies, with different black men, until they have had five or six. These women do not go to school. They do not work. They are not ashamed to live on public money. They plan their entire lives around the expectation that they will always get free money and never have to work. I do not see this among whites, Hispanics, or any other people.

The black men who become my clients also do not work. They get social security disability payments for a mental defect or for a vague and invisible physical ailment. They do not pay for anything: not for housing (Grandma lives on welfare and he lives with her), not for food (Grandma and the baby-momma share with him), and not for child support. When I learn that my 19-year-old defendant does not work or go to school, I ask, “What do you do all day?” He smiles. “You know, just chill.” These men live in a culture with no expectations, no demands, and no shame.

If you tell a black to dress properly for trial, and don’t give specific instructions, he will arrive in wildly inappropriate clothes. I represented a woman who was on trial for drugs; she wore a baseball cap with a marijuana leaf embroidered on it. I represented a man who wore a shirt that read “rules are for suckers” to his probation hearing. Our office provides suits, shirts, ties, and dresses for clients to wear for jury trials. Often, it takes a whole team of lawyers to persuade a black to wear a shirt and tie instead of gang colors.

From time to time the media report that although blacks are 12 percent of the population they are 40 percent of the prison population. This is supposed to be an outrage that results from unfair treatment by the criminal justice system. What the media only hint at is another staggering reality: recidivism. Black men are arrested and convicted over and over. It is typical for a black man to have five felony convictions before the age of 30. This kind of record is rare among whites and Hispanics, and probably even rarer among Asians.

Source: Bureau of Justice Statistics

At one time our office was looking for a motto that defined our philosophy. Someone joked that it should be: “Doesn’t everyone deserve an eleventh chance?”

I am a liberal. I believe that those of us who are able to produce abundance have a moral duty to provide basic food, shelter, and medical care for those who cannot care for themselves. I believe we have this duty even to those who can care for themselves but don’t. This world view requires compassion and a willingness to act on it.

My experience has taught me that we live in a nation in which a jury is more likely to convict a black defendant who has committed a crime against a white. Even the dullest of blacks know this. There would be a lot more black-on-white crime if this were not the case.

However, my experience has also taught me that blacks are different by almost any measure to all other people. They cannot reason as well. They cannot communicate as well. They cannot control their impulses as well. They are a threat to all who cross their paths, black and non-black alike.

I do not know the solution to this problem. I do know that it is wrong to deceive the public. Whatever solutions we seek should be based on the truth rather than what we would prefer was the truth. As for myself, I will continue do my duty to protect the rights of all who need me.

Let me be as clear and as blunt as possible: an abusive police state is necessary in order to hold a “multicultural” society together.

If you go to one of the few white areas left in this nation, or anywhere in the world--the ranks of police necessary to keep the peace plummets, because crime goes down astronomically.

The results of what is happening right now will be turning a blind eye to non-white crimes, and a refocusing of resources into policing whites for revenue generation purposes. This is easier, more profitable, and much safer for cops.

Crime will explode, of course. Politicians, psychologists, the MSM, and other assorted idiot savants from the left will double down with their suicidal stupidity, and blame whitey for the sad state of affairs and demand even more money to solve the mess.

Eventually the pendulum will swing hard in the other direction, people will beg for a police state; even most of those who are ideologically opposed to one now.

So basically, a multicultural society is ungovernable, unpoliceable, and unsustainable.

We are already teetering on full-blown bankruptcy, with many tens of millions of unemployed around the nation, while this government insists on importing half the third world, no matter what the costs or consequences, ALL THE WHILE with automation destined to take 1/3 of all present jobs within the next decade alone. Talk about packing the dynamite.

It really doesn't take a genius to see what is in store for the nation from the ever angry, entitled and infantilized low-IQ negro population that has low-to-no impulse control--who will not be able to compete in an increasingly technological environment, while simultaneously being squeezed out of the job market by foreigners.

Total hell awaits, because no one in power wants to deal with reality, as they are either chicken-shit cowards or fools who have drank too much Kool-Aid and actually believe their own BS; kinda like Rand Paul, who has done both.

Total segregation will be mandatory for any future society to function, and for whites to survive. The same way Israel survives in the midst of extremely hostile nations.

By Salvatore

“Great White” has written one of the best comments I've read in the alternative media in a long time. Yes, an abusive police state is necessary in a "multi-cultural" society, especially as the blacks and other minorities are so ardent in support of street criminals. While it's true the cops can be abusive, the cops are nowhere near as abusive as are all the feral street criminals roaming America's streets.

We are, us Whites, being pushed into a corner whereby we either have to support living in a police state, however abusive, or living in a third world hell of African violence and misery.

A militarized police force is part and parcel of being a third world country (which Uncle Sam wants the USA to devolve into). If blacks are so very opposed to a militarized police force, they should consider staying home and doing their school homework and/or learning a trade and stop their criminal behavior. The blacks have every opportunity in the USA to live productive lives, if they want to. Every school and every company in the USA is trying desperately to recruit and hire blacks. In some ways, the blacks have more opportunity in the USA than most white Americans have. If white liberals/leftists are so very appalled by, and so very opposed to, a militarized police force, they need to stop making a million excuses for black criminal behavior.

The blacks cry about racism, yet blacks have the choice to go to ALL-black colleges, or so-called “white” colleges. ALL white, or so-called “white” colleges, are legally required to be integrated. Black colleges are NOT legally required to take in NON-black students. Blacks have scholarships just for blacks, and NO ONE else. Us Whites are legally prohibited from having scholarships for White students. With the college situation, especially, we see clearly it’s us Whites who are being racially discriminated against, NOT blacks.

The President of the USA is black, the Attorney General of the USA is black, the head of NASA is black, many big city mayors are black, there’re many black congressmen and women, and Hollywood is now mainly black -- mainly inspired by black music and black sensibilities, the world of sports is now mainly black.

The supervising police officer at the Garner arrest, by the way, was a black female police officer [Sergeant Kizzy Adoni]. Also, never mentioned anywhere, many corrupt and abusive cops are blacks and minorities cops.

The blacks want to integrate into every White neighborhood in the USA, yet they do NOT want any NON-blacks in their black neighborhoods. Whites who don't want to live in black neighborhoods are “racist”; Whites who move into predominately black neighborhoods, the “gentrifiers,” are “racist.” Asians who open stores in black neighborhoods are “racist.”

The choice now, we have been pushed into this choice, either a militarized police state or a black African hell. [N.S.: Or both.]

The non-leftist, conservative Whites who want to criticize the cops need to make it very clear they are in no way supporting black criminality, or any other type of criminality. They need to focus their complaints on how the police have turned their backs on us White working class, or their criticism of the police will be used by our enemies to continue justifying black street criminals -- and White and Jew anarchists/communists.

I just got the following fundraising letter from Christie Fogarty, the director of membership at the Heritage Foundation, which threw America’s most talented young social scientist, Jason Richwine, under the bus last year. Heritage was sucking up to its enemies.

My response follows Christie’s letter. (Although I don’t know the lady from Eve, we seem to be on a first-name basis.)

I wanted to check in to see if you'll be able to contribute towards Heritage's million dollar goal by the December 31 deadline.

Your gift will go straight to supporting your conservative principles in 2015. We're going to arm and equip the new Congress with the intellectual ammunition they need to win conservative victories. And we're going to work to move more and more Americans to our side.

You can make your year-end contribution here.

I hope you'll be able to stand with us by the end of the year. Thanks for your support, and have a very happy new year.

All my best,

Christie Fogarty
Director of Membership
The Heritage Foundation

P.S. The Heritage Foundation is a 501(c)(3) non-profit, so your gift by December 31 is tax-deductible.

A genuine conservative is against Big Government and, by extension, its arm of violence against its own citizens. Government, and cops, are necessary evils that must be restrained as much as possible. So there is no contradiction between being pro-police and supporting those cops who do their job professionally and respectfully, versus being against those who endorse and enforce Anarcho-Tyranny. I am thankful to the cops who keep the negro undertow in check. But I strongly oppose those dirtbags who will pencil-whip the crime stats for PC purposes, ignore crime victims, and use unnecessary violence. Cops hold a highly privileged place in our society, and therefore must be held to a much higher standard of ethics than average citizens.

Sunday, December 28, 2014

Thumbs up! I told a few stories over on Radix, but cop-loving conservatwits are rife over there. I don't hate cops. Like you, I'm ambivalent. But there are cop problems out there that should be honestly addressed. Supporting cops, whether they are right or wrong, makes us look like fools.

Here's the information on this week's film "Pride" showing Friday and SATURDAY this week.

(No Wed. showing this week. Happy New Years!). "Pride" is nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Comedy or Musical and is a big hit with both critics and audiences alike!

"Pride" is inspired by an extraordinary true story. It's the summer of 1984, Margaret Thatcher is in power and the National Union of Mineworkers is on strike, prompting a London-based group of gay and lesbian activists to raise money to support the strikers' families. Initially rebuffed by the Union, the group identifies a tiny mining village in Wales and sets off to make their donation in person. As the strike drags on, the two groups discover that standing together makes for the strongest union of all...

Hope you'll come join us for a night out at the movies!

Craig Stutzky
Petoskey Film Theater

MOVIE TRAILER
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsFY0wHpR5o

The film is funny, warm-hearted and enormously satisfying.
The Hollywood Reporter
Reviewed by: David Rooney

It's feel-good, no question about it. But it's also absorbing, important and inspiring
Arizona Republic
Reviewed by: Bill Goodykoontz

Quite simply, one of the best movies of the year so far.
San Francisco Chronicle
Reviewed by: Michael Ordona

It’s a joyous film, full of love and warmth but unafraid to admit that with sticking out your neck comes struggle and sorrow. Truly lovely.
Time Out London
Reviewed by: Dave Calhoun

It says something that 30 years after the events it depicts, Pride should feel so unexpectedly rousing. People cooperating across ideological lines? Finding common cause with folks they don't 100 percent agree with? What a concept.
NPR
Reviewed by: Bob Mondello

New York Magazine (Vulture)
Reviewed by: David Edelstein
What a cast Pride has — some of the best famous actors in Britain and lesser-known younger ones that will (soon) take their place in the firmament.

The New York Times
Reviewed by: Stephen Holden
It is the kind of hearty, blunt-force drama with softened edges that leaves audiences applauding and teary-eyed

Los Angeles Times
Reviewed by: Kenneth Turan
Pride is an unapologetic crowd-pleaser of a movie, but it has some potent points to make, and the reality of what happened has a power of its own

Chicago Sun-Times
Reviewed by: Bill Zwecker
This film moves effortlessly from some pretty intense dramatic moments to hilarious scenes showcasing the contrasting lifestyles of the gay and straight worlds to some vignettes of incredible poignancy.

ReelViews
Reviewed by: James Berardinelli
Pride will get viewers cheering while reflecting upon how far we have come in 30 years… and how far we have yet to go.

RogerEbert.com
Reviewed by: Odie Henderson
The Brits do this type of crowd-pleaser far better than Hollywood, if only because films like “The Full Monty” and “Billy Elliot” were unafraid to temper sweetness with darker elements of reality.

New York Observer
Reviewed by: Rex Reed
A joyous, well-researched and liberating film in the feel-good spirit of "Billy Elliot," "The Full Monty" and "Calendar Girls."

About Me

I am a dissident journalist, whose work has been published in dozens of daily newspapers, magazines, and journals in English, German, and Swedish, under my own name and many pseudonyms. While living in internal exile in New York, where I am whitelisted, I maintain NSU/The Wyatt Earp Journalism Bureau and some eight other blogs (some are distinctive but occasional venues, while others are mirrors), and also write for stout-hearted men such as Peter Brimelow and Jared Taylor. Please hit the “Donate” button on your way out. Thanks, in advance.
Follow my tweets at @NicholasStix.

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The response so far to WEJB/NSU’s ongoing fundraiser has been very heartening, but we need tens of thousands of dollars more, in order to tide us over for 2012! If you have given, I thank you. If not, please consider making a donation.